The gravitational pull of peace of mind

The benefits of cloud based storage are evident. But, some argue the rewards still don’t outweigh the risks when it comes to cloud based storage for business?

Andy Moon blogged earlier this year about the rather slow adoption of cloud based storage across small, medium, and enterprise customers. Andy says, according to a Forrester Research survey of 1,200 IT decision makers found that only 8% of businesses (small, medium, and enterprise) have any current plans to utilize cloud storage and only 3% are using it now.

i365 (a Seagate company) blogger John Sun put these surveys into perspective in The Surveys Say… Partly Cloudy. John provides some insight as to why the cloud should not be viewed as a one-size fits all solution.

So, why the slower than expected adoption of cloud based storage? What else could it be – security. Peace of mind carries with it a lot of weight, like some sort of gravitational pull that is making IT managers and small business owners think twice, or three times about implementing more elaborate cloud based data storage solutions beyond backup and disaster recovery. That weight is largely made up of the risks and penalties that come with data breaches.

Looking back through history thought, what other technologies had this same force to overcome? For some it was quite simple, but some are more difficult and are slowly powering through. I guess it all comes down to the the sensitivity of the data, and the trust we have in where we put it.

Email / Communication

Contact management

E-commerce

Backup

Music distribution

Electronic tax returns

Electronic health records

Personal Banking

How quickly do you see businesses overcoming this powerful force of gravity?